OMNI
CITIZENS UNITED, MCCUTCHEON, CORPORATE
PERSONHOOD, CAMPAIGN FINANCE NEWSLETTER
#7. Feb. 17, 2015.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice,
and Ecology.
(Previous Newsletters on this subject: #1
11-2-11; #2 12-9-11; #3 1-2-12; #4 8-4-12; #5 9-23-12; #6 Jan. 21, 2014).
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
such as Campaign Finance, Capitalism,
Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Occupy, Plutochracy.
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/
Here is the link to the Index:
http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/
Contents Campaign Finance, Corporate Personhood, Citizens United, McCutcheon v. FEC Newsletter # 7
Dick, Introduction, How We Can Significantly Reduce Corruption in Our
Politics
Reduce Corruption: Reforms
in Laws and Practices
League of Women’s Voters Petition to FEC, Anti-Corruption Act, Require Transparency,
Enforce “Coordinated” Laws, Close Loop-holes, Brief Campaign Periods, Run-Off Voting, FEC use its full powers,
Defeat ALEC
Additional
Harms of Citizens United:
Millhizer,
Campaign Against Minimum Wage
Reduce
Corruption: Overturn Citizens United, Corporate Personhood
by Constitutional Amendment
Move to Amend
Help Defend Public Citizen Against Citizens-based Suit
Jeff Clements, Corporations
Are Not People, Free Speech for People
Carl Gibson, Corporate Personhood, Climate Change, and Climate
Change
March Sept. 21, 2014
March Sept. 21, 2014
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Hope for a Popular Uprising
PublicCitizen,
Senate Opposition to Citizens United
Growing
Cole
Stangler for Constitutional Amendment
Rick
Staggenborg on Tom Udall’s Constitutional Amendment
Cobb,
Move to Amend
Petitions for multiple
approaches to reform
Friends
of the Earth Petition Calling On Congress to End Citizens United
Credo,
Petition: Tell Congress to Overturn Citizens
United
LCV
Petition, Overturn Citizens United by
Congressional Action
Shaheen,
Demand Congress
Change the Economic
System, Replace Capitalism
Naomi
Klein, Capitalism vs. the Climate
Foster
and Clark, Rev. of Klein’s Book
FOR OUR DEMOCRACY, What Should Democrats Do?
Dick
Bennett
John Brummett’s recent column, “Koch Who?
Classic. . . ,” asked What should the Democrats Do? to ensure the well-being of most citizens,
the core of the Party. In reply he
described a focus group of Arkansas women.
But the restoration of the achievements of FDR’s New Deal will require
much more than even the best, numerous focus groups on all levels of
politics. The problem is the
overwhelming control of national—and increasingly local--US representative
government by the money of 1% of the population. The present US plutocracy derives from the
many structures of corruption: a tax
system favoring the rich and corporations, the long, expensive campaigns
welcome to the rich and to the mainstream media, and so on. The major corruption (but see Cole below) is
unrestrained power of money, recently swollen by the Supreme Court rulings Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC, in which corporations are defined as persons,
given First Amendment rights, and restrictions over campaign financing are
removed.
My newsletters on Citizens United and
McCutcheon, US Capitalism, US Democracy, Koch Brothers, Corporate Personhood,
and US Corporations provide a host of information and advocacy, but three paths
especially emerge to democratize our electoral system by reducing the power of
money and expanding the equality of citizens. The first two are reforms to control the
excesses of capitalism—its obsessive drive for capital accumulation that
results in monopoly and inequality. The
third is a radical rejection of this reigning economic system.
I.
Anti-Corruption Legislation
Pass the Anti-Corruption Act
(end tax loopholes, brief campaigns, run-off voting, transparency: see US
Democracy Newsletter #1
Push FEC to Use Its Full
Regulatory Powers: transparency and strict
definition of “coordinated” use of money
definition of “coordinated” use of money
Defeat ALEC
II.
Amend the Constitution to Reverse Citizens and McCutcheon (see Corporate
Personhood Newsletter #4 Table of Contents at end and here for full contents: http://omnicenter.org/storage/newsletters/2012/2012-08-04.pdf
).
III.
In This
Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein sets forth the
reasons why capitalism must be replaced by a life- rather than a
profit-centered economic system.
Many of us believe in the power of
education and knowledge to resist the birth and growth of ideas and practices
hurtful to all species. As a professor, I urged my students to think
of themselves as autonomous centers of being, even while I was committed to the
principles and practices of Roosevelt’s New Deal affirmative government and
Four Freedoms.
But that train was derailed several
decades ago. Now our country is
dominated by a capitalist regime enforced by the wealth of a few people
epitomized by the Koch Brothers just at the time when we need urgently to be
organizing cooperatively through affirmative government to prevent the worst
that climate change is certain to inflict upon us.
REFORMING
CAPITALISM
League
of Women Voters
TRANSPARENCY
IN POLITICAL FUNDING AND ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW AGAINST UNLIMITED COORDINATED
EXPENDITURES
Tell the
FEC What to do About Citizens United
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Dick--
Did you see Elisabeth’s note below? We really need you to respond.
2014 was the most expensive midterm election ever.
Ever.
That was fueled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens
United, which unleashed secret contributions and unlimited spending by
special interest groups seeking to buy our elected officials and distort our
elections.
But, as Elisabeth explains below, the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) has authority under existing law to put a stop to these
abuses.
Please honor Elisabeth’s request and send comments to the FEC right
now.
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Thanks,
Lloyd Leonard
Senior Director of Advocacy League of Women Voters |
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Dear Lloyd:
Another
election has come and gone and millions of Americans went to the polls to
vote at the local, state and federal levels on the issues and candidates that
mattered most to them. While they were working as citizens to make those
important decisions, millions of dollars of secret money poured into the 2014
elections from dark money groups which hide the identity of their donors,
seeking to buy our elected officials and distort our elections. And we won’t
ever know who paid for all of the ads that bombarded voters throughout the
election.
The
Federal Election Commission (FEC) can do something to stop the secret money. But so far the Commission has failed
to set new rules requiring full disclosure in our elections. Tell the FEC to stop the secret
money that is polluting our elections!
What’s more,
Super PACs raised and spent more than $600 million dollars in 2014 to elect
candidates who will do their bidding and defeat those who might resist. Super
PACs and other outside groups can raise and spend unlimited amounts because
they are supposedly “independent” from the candidates, but in reality, there
are many ways to coordinate that are not blocked by the FEC’s weak
regulations.
The FEC
can do something to stop the Super PACs from coordinating with candidates, which would put a lid on much of the
outside spending from special interests. Tell the FEC to stop the
coordinated spending that is poisoning our elections!
The FEC is
the federal agency in charge of our nation’s campaign finance laws, but so
far they’ve done practically nothing to address the U.S. Supreme Court’s
disappointing decision in Citizens United, which unleashed the secret and
unlimited spending. The FEC has authority under existing law,
even after Citizens United, to set disclosure rules
and rigorously define “coordination,” but thus far they have refused to do so.
The FEC is
now receiving public comment about steps they should take “to address
corruption in the political process.” As a League supporter, you know how
important specific regulations can be. We need you to tell the FEC to
act and enforce the law.
The American
voter has a right to know who is funding political campaigns. And the
American public has a right to have the law against unlimited coordinated
expenditures strictly enforced. Tell the FEC to shine a light on
secret money and tell the FEC to stop coordinated expenditures by outside
groups.
We must work
to maintain the integrity of our Democracy by ensuring our elected official
will be responsive to voters and not to the big money and the secret money
from special interests. The stakes are too high, and the League will not
stand by and let our political system be corrupted.
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Citizens United, Corporate Personhood NO: Constitutional Amendment
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MOVE TO AMEND
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The company suing us invokes Citizens United to claim a right
meant for people
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Dick,
There’s been a bizarre twist in Big Coal’s lawsuit against Public Citizen.
Last month, I alerted you that Public Citizen has been sued by a major coal company, Murray Energy, after we called out its attempts to block new rules intended to help protect workers and prevent air pollution.
Murray Energy is now claiming that Citizens United — the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that has allowed unlimited election spending by billionaires and Big Business to corrupt our democracy — may also give corporations privacy rights previously belonging only to people.
In response to our motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Murray Energy is arguing that radio ads we ran about it challenging new worker safety and clean air protections “invaded its privacy” and caused it “mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Remember, Murray Energy is a corporation.
And Murray Energy sued us, not the other way around.
But in this post-Citizens United, “corporations are people” world, companies claim to have human privacy that can be invaded and human feelings that can be hurt.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for December 9.
I wish we didn’t have to devote time and money to fighting a lawsuit that is the desperate act of a member of an industry engaged in a losing battle against the tide of history.
But we do.
Can you chip in right now so that we don’t have to eat into funding for real work while we defend ourselves from this attack?
As if invoking Citizens United to claim a right intended for living, breathing human beings isn’t radical enough, Murray Energy goes even further, suggesting that it is willing to make this lawsuit about the truth of climate science itself.
It could be the Scopes Monkey Trial all over again.
To recap, here’s what we’re up against:
A corporation with very deep pockets — claiming that Citizens United entitles it to rights meant for people and seemingly eager to put science on trial — is suing us.
I hope you’ll make a contribution to help us fight back and keep standing up to corporate power.
Thank you for whatever you can chip in today.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
© 2014 Public Citizen • 1600 20th Street, NW / Washington, D.C. 20009 • unsubscribe
There’s been a bizarre twist in Big Coal’s lawsuit against Public Citizen.
Last month, I alerted you that Public Citizen has been sued by a major coal company, Murray Energy, after we called out its attempts to block new rules intended to help protect workers and prevent air pollution.
Murray Energy is now claiming that Citizens United — the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that has allowed unlimited election spending by billionaires and Big Business to corrupt our democracy — may also give corporations privacy rights previously belonging only to people.
In response to our motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Murray Energy is arguing that radio ads we ran about it challenging new worker safety and clean air protections “invaded its privacy” and caused it “mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Remember, Murray Energy is a corporation.
And Murray Energy sued us, not the other way around.
But in this post-Citizens United, “corporations are people” world, companies claim to have human privacy that can be invaded and human feelings that can be hurt.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for December 9.
I wish we didn’t have to devote time and money to fighting a lawsuit that is the desperate act of a member of an industry engaged in a losing battle against the tide of history.
But we do.
Can you chip in right now so that we don’t have to eat into funding for real work while we defend ourselves from this attack?
As if invoking Citizens United to claim a right intended for living, breathing human beings isn’t radical enough, Murray Energy goes even further, suggesting that it is willing to make this lawsuit about the truth of climate science itself.
It could be the Scopes Monkey Trial all over again.
To recap, here’s what we’re up against:
A corporation with very deep pockets — claiming that Citizens United entitles it to rights meant for people and seemingly eager to put science on trial — is suing us.
I hope you’ll make a contribution to help us fight back and keep standing up to corporate power.
Thank you for whatever you can chip in today.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
© 2014 Public Citizen • 1600 20th Street, NW / Washington, D.C. 20009 • unsubscribe
Posted by Kevin Bell 41.20sc on October 18, 2014 · Add your reaction
Join Jeffrey Clements, founder of Free Speech for People and author of Corporations Are Not People-Reclaiming Democracy from Big Money and Global Corporations. He will discuss this second edition of his book.
Clements spoke at the Clinton School last Nov. 19, 2014, but his organization and book remain to guide us in the struggle.
Clinton School - Corporations are not People - Jeff Clements
1200 President Clinton Ave
Little Rock, AR 72201
United States
What Does Corporate Personhood Have to Do With Climate Change?
Everything. By Carl Gibson, Reader
Supported News. 22 September 14. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/26019-focus-what-does-corporate-personhood-have-to-do-with-climate-change-everything
300,000 people took over Manhattan Island this weekend demanding
climate justice (Full disclosure: I was one of them). While it’s important for
the continued existence of the human race to minimize greenhouse gases like CO2
and methane emissions that generate heat in our atmosphere, simply using
sustainable energy sources and consuming less isn’t a cure-all for climate
change. If we really want to get to the
root of the problem and have real climate justice, we have to end corporate
personhood. Until corporations are no longer considered people, they’ll
always be able to claim their inalienable constitutional rights to make a
profit at all costs and get around any new regulations, like emissions laws or
energy usage limits.
How Artificial Entities
Gained Constitutional Rights
Corporations have been people since 1886, when the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in the Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case that
the constitutional right of equal protection under the law, originally meant
for freed slaves in the 14th Amendment, applied not only to human beings, but to
artificial entities like corporations as well. Since then, these
artificially-created legal entities meant to shield people from liability and
risk have had the same constitutional rights as living, breathing human beings
with a pulse, like you and me, and have finagled those rights to gain control
over every aspect of society.
Previously, corporations were chartered for very specific
projects solely for the public good and kept on a tight leash – if a
corporation did anything it wasn’t specifically chartered to do, its corporate
charter was revoked. This changed in the 1818 Dartmouth College vs. Woodward
ruling, in which the Supreme Court agreed that Dartmouth College’s corporate
charter was a contract between private entities, and beyond the regulation of
the state legislature.
After corporations gained personhood rights in 1886, they became
persons with Fourth Amendment protections in 1906 with the Hale vs. Henkel
decision. A major antitrust case against a group of tobacco corporations was
stopped short when, after the U.S. government demanded a tobacco farmer turn
over his financial documents, he alleged that his corporation had the right to
be free from unreasonable search and seizure as a corporate “person.”
In 1976, corporate money became protected by the First Amendment
in the Buckley vs. Valeo ruling. Seven justices agreed that donations to
campaigns were the same as free speech. The 1979 First National Bank of Boston
vs. Bellotti Supreme Court case established precedent that corporations’ money
was not only free speech, but that corporate money could be allowed to
influence the outcome in a ballot initiative rather than simply go to one
candidate or another in an election. Interestingly enough, the justice who
wrote the majority decision in Bellotti was Lewis Powell, author of the 1971
Powell Memo. Powell wrote the memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when he was
still a corporate lawyer, laying out a strategy for corporations to take over
society by first taking over the schools, the media, and the courts.
In more recent history, the 2010 Citizens United vs. FEC case
said that corporate money in elections was free speech and could be completely
unregulated through independent channels. This year’s McCutcheon vs. FEC case
ruled that money in elections was free speech, and current aggregate limits on
individual donations were a violation of the First Amendment. While Citizens
United and McCutcheon are the most well-known cases, simply overturning those
cases while ignoring all the rest is akin to scratching off the scab but doing
nothing about the infection.
Essentially, immortal, fictional, man-made legal phantoms that
neither eat, drink, breathe, make love, nor die, are fully armed with every
constitutional right you and I have. The difference between corporations and us
is that they often have more money to play with to hire expensive lawyers that
can undo the will of the people. One case study is what happened in Humboldt
County, California.
What Corporate
Constitutional Rights Has to Do with Climate Justice
In the 1990s, Humboldt County voters passed strict guidelines
establishing ownership of their environment, along with zoning laws to prevent
public land from being converted into something the people didn’t support.
Walmart attempted to open a location in Humboldt County in 1999, but the zoning
laws prevented them from doing so. Walmart spent over $200,000 hiring petition
gatherers in the community to overturn zoning laws, but the ballot initiative
to overturn the people’s own zoning laws fell short. A victory, right? Think
again.
In 2003, the Maxxam Corporation’s subsidiary, Pacific Lumber,
wanted to cut down a portion of Humboldt’s redwood forest, and submitted a
logging plan adherent to the county’s environmental standards. After the Department
of Forestry sanctioned it, Pacific Lumber ended up cutting down far more trees
than originally proposed. After enough citizens complained about the water
quality and damage to the environment caused by the logging, newly-elected
District Attorney Paul Gallegos sued Pacific Lumber for fraud. Maxxam then
mounted a recall campaign against Gallegos in retaliation for his enforcement
of the law, and the recall cost the people of Humboldt County $300,000 to keep
their elected official. Gallegos kept his job by a 69 percent to 31 percent
margin, and continued his lawsuit against Maxxam, which amounted to over $250
million. Another win for the people, right? Wrong.
The people of Humboldt County were so incensed over the
corporate-funded recall effort against their duly-elected official that in
2006, they passed Measure T. The measure effectively prohibited corporations
and other entities from outside Humboldt County from donating money to
influence Humboldt County elections. In 2008, the Pacific Legal Foundation,
whose key funder in its first several decades was Richard Mellon Scaife (heir
to the Paul Mellon dynasty), and which is currently funded by a Koch
Brothers-funded foundation, successfully overturned Measure T in U.S. District
Court. The PLF argued that Measure T’s restrictions on campaign financing was a
violation of both the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, and the First
Amendment. This set the precedent that allowing some corporations to set up
shop, but not others, like Walmart, violated the 14th Amendment. This also set
precedent that when Maxxam submitted a fraudulent logging plan, it was allowed
to do so, since lying was a form of free speech.
So, when you ask, what do corporate constitutional rights have
to do with climate justice? Everything.
How We Fix It
We can regulate greenhouse gas emissions all we want, pass a
carbon tax, and demand moratoriums on drilling and fracking. But because the
Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have no duty to the public good and
can be unilaterally focused on making a profit at any cost, and that
corporations are legal persons with inalienable constitutional rights, any
corporation can sue the people and win as long as they have those
constitutional rights.
However, this can be fixed by pursuing a simply-worded
constitutional amendment. It must state that constitutional rights are only
intended for human beings, not artificial entities like corporations. And it
must also state that money is property, not free speech, and can be regulated
in elections and ballot initiatives. If we have the grassroots movement to put
300,000 people in the streets of New York City for climate justice, we have the
movement to pass that amendment. Let’s get to work.
Carl Gibson, 27, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nonviolent
grassroots movement that mobilized thousands to protest corporate tax dodging
and budget cuts in the months leading up to Occupy Wall Street. Carl and other
US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary We're Not Broke, which
premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Carl is also the author of How to
Oust a Congressman, an instructional manual on getting rid of corrupt members
of Congress and state legislatures based on his experience in the 2012
elections in New Hampshire. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this
work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to
Reader Supported News.
HEUVEL’S PREDICTION CAME TRUE SEPTEMBER 21, 2014!
MCCUTCHEON V. FEC
The 'Next Citizens United' May Fuel a Popular Uprising
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation, 11 March
14
ity poor Shaun McCutcheon.
McCutcheon is the Alabama
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision
in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission any day now. Given the Roberts
court's track record, the biggest campaign-finance decision since Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission is likely to blow another gigantic hole
in the fabric of our democracy.
Such a ruling will fuel popular outrage and increase pressure
for fundamental reforms such as disclosure and public financing. Already,
Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) have introduced a constitutional
amendment allowing campaign spending limits. This would finally
supercede the Supreme Court's infamous 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with speech and effectively turned our elections
into auctions.
[McCutcheon won, but vanden Heuvel may be right. The number of US Senators who support a
constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is growing.
Dick,
There were once only four.
Later there were 26.
Now there are 50.
And counting.
I’m talking about the number of senators who support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
In 2010 — the year the Supreme Court handed down that disastrous ruling — four senators formally supported an amendment.
By the end of 2012, it was 26.
As of this week, it’s 50.
In other words, as we speak, exactly half of the United States Senate supports an amendment many thought was “impossible” a few short years ago.
I’ve seen a thing or two, but even I got goose bumps Thursday, when we heard from the 49th and 50th senators to sign on.
Something historic is happening. And as part of Public Citizen, you can feel very proud that you helped bring this about.
This is why we can’t take our foot off the gas at all.
This is why we have to keep reaching out to senators who aren’t yet on board while they’re home for the August congressional recess. One more and we’ll have a majority!
This is why a group of benefactors will match, dollar-for-dollar, whatever you contribute right now.
Donate right now. Maybe $50 to mark this milestone. Keep the pedal to the metal.
Thank you.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
There were once only four.
Later there were 26.
Now there are 50.
And counting.
I’m talking about the number of senators who support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
In 2010 — the year the Supreme Court handed down that disastrous ruling — four senators formally supported an amendment.
By the end of 2012, it was 26.
As of this week, it’s 50.
In other words, as we speak, exactly half of the United States Senate supports an amendment many thought was “impossible” a few short years ago.
I’ve seen a thing or two, but even I got goose bumps Thursday, when we heard from the 49th and 50th senators to sign on.
Something historic is happening. And as part of Public Citizen, you can feel very proud that you helped bring this about.
This is why we can’t take our foot off the gas at all.
This is why we have to keep reaching out to senators who aren’t yet on board while they’re home for the August congressional recess. One more and we’ll have a majority!
This is why a group of benefactors will match, dollar-for-dollar, whatever you contribute right now.
Donate right now. Maybe $50 to mark this milestone. Keep the pedal to the metal.
Thank you.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
CLEMENTS WAS IN LITTLE ROCK, COBB
IN SPRINGFIELD. Let’s watch for their
activities and publications.
Live & IN Person: David Cobb speaking in Springfield: Challenging Corporate Rule
& Creating Democracy! Move to Amend
Sue Skidmore [suesactivism@mchsi.com]
Thursday, April 17, 2014 12:55 AM
Remember
April 21-David Cobb speaks live & in person- Challenging Corporate Rule
& Creating Democracy! in Springfield ,
MO.
Move to Amend national spokesperson David Cobb, attorney and lifelong activist, is speaking in Springfield, Missouri on April 21st @ 6:30pm, in an effort to build connections, inspire activism, and reveal the origins of corporate power in America.
The Move to Amend Coalition is a national partnership of over 330,000 people and hundreds of organizations whose goal is to amend the U.S. Constitution to end corporate rule by building a multiracial, cross-class democracy movement. David's presentations are part history lesson and part heart-felt call-to-action! "Challenging Corporate Rule & Creating Democracy" aims to help local folks understand how they can work to abolish corporate personhood and establish a government of, by, and for the people.
Pinned at the top of the Facebook event, you will find a video
titled, “Legalize Democracy!” Legalize Democracy is a 30 minute documentary
about Move to Amend. This is a great introductory for those needing to learn
what this movement is about. Here is the direct link for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kyVD7jVhqKo
David Cobb and Move To Amend Coming Listen to David Cobb on Tell Somebody on KKFI KC Community Radio at the link below: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/0/2/c/02c53eba4721c7cf/ts_2014_04_10.mp3?c_id=7071691&expiration=1397718256&hwt=e251f1de3f9e18842fd8e25893e0c459
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kyVD7jVhqKo
David Cobb and Move To Amend Coming Listen to David Cobb on Tell Somebody on KKFI KC Community Radio at the link below: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/0/2/c/02c53eba4721c7cf/ts_2014_04_10.mp3?c_id=7071691&expiration=1397718256&hwt=e251f1de3f9e18842fd8e25893e0c459
The
local Springfield chapter of Move to
Amend has been working to build their grassroots base over the past few
years and have succeeded in passing several non-binding municipal resolutions
in Southwest Missouri . These towns include:
Seligman, Exeter , Purdy, Granby ,
Pierce City ,
Freistatt, Verona
https://movetoamend.org/resolutions-map
Move to Amend finances these tours through the generous donations of event attendees.
For more information about David Cobb, visit his bio here: https://movetoamend.org/spokespeople#david
For more information about Move to Amend, visit our website here: https://movetoamend.org/
***Please share this event and invite everyone you know! Thank you for getting involved!***
https://movetoamend.org/resolutions-map
Move to Amend finances these tours through the generous donations of event attendees.
For more information about David Cobb, visit his bio here: https://movetoamend.org/spokespeople#david
For more information about Move to Amend, visit our website here: https://movetoamend.org/
***Please share this event and invite everyone you know! Thank you for getting involved!***
PETITIONS FOR AMENDMENT
Help us get 5 million signatures
to end Citizens United
January 7, 2015
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Sign this petition to OVERTURN
CITIZENS UNITED
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Dec 192014
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Cole Stangler, “Oligarchy Enshrined.” In
These Times (June 2014). Most of the
article explains the Supreme Court rulings and their consequences. The final section advocates the remedy of a constitutional amendment. But what should it say?
Constitutional amendment going to floor of
Senate for debate
Rick Staggenborg
[staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com]
Actions
To:
Rick Staggenborg
[staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com]
Friday, May 02, 2014 3:19 PM
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Put a stop to Citizens United for good
It’s
time to put a stop to the corrosive impact of special interest money in
politics and endCitizens United once and for all.
Members
of Congress:
2014
was the most expensive Senate midterm election in history — thanks in part to
the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.
Free
and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. Special interests
shouldn’t be able to buy our elections.
That’s
why I’m supporting Tom Udall’s constitutional amendment to end Citizens
United, and I’m urging you to do the same
CONSEQUENCES OF CITIZENS
UNITED AND MCCUTCHEON V. FEC
CORPORATIONS
USE RULINGS TO OPPOSE MINIMUM WAGE EFFORTS
Industry Group Files Lawsuit Seeking to Kill Seattle
Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress , Reader Supported News, June 13, 2014
Millhiser reports: "Last week, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D) signed a bill that will eventually raise his city's minimum wage to $15 an hour. It took eight days for a lobbying group representing major employers like McDonald's and Taco Bell to file a lawsuit asking the courts to repeal the legislation."
READ MORE
Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress , Reader Supported News, June 13, 2014
Millhiser reports: "Last week, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D) signed a bill that will eventually raise his city's minimum wage to $15 an hour. It took eight days for a lobbying group representing major employers like McDonald's and Taco Bell to file a lawsuit asking the courts to repeal the legislation."
READ MORE
CHANGE
THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM
Search
This Changes Everything:
Capitalism vs. the Climate By Naomi Klein.
Simon and Schuster, 2014. http://books.simonandschuster.com/This-Changes-Everything/Naomi-Klein/9781451697384
The most
important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The
Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market”
ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political
systems.
In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.
Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.
Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.
In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.
Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.
Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.
- See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/This-Changes-Everything/Naomi-Klein/9781451697384#sthash.mils8ecs.dpuf
REVIEW OF KLEIN’S
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REVIEW OF THE MONTH
Crossing the River of Fire
The Liberal Attack on Naomi Klein and This Changes Everything
by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark
topics: Capitalism, Climate Change, Ecology, Movements, Political
Economy, Social Movements places:
Americas, Global, United States
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of
sociology at the University of Oregon. Brett Clark is associate professor of
sociology at the University of Utah and co-author of The Tragedy of the
Commodity (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming).
The front cover of Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything,
is designed to look like a protest sign. It consists of the title alone in big
block letters, with the emphasis on Changes. Both the author’s name and the
subtitle are absent. It is only when we look at the spine of the book, turn it
over, or open it to the title page that we see it is written by North America’s
leading left climate intellectual-activist and that the subtitle is Capitalism
vs. the Climate.1 All of which is clearly meant to convey in no uncertain terms
that climate change literally changes everything for today’s society. It
threatens to turn the mythical human conquest of nature on its head,
endangering present-day civilization and throwing doubt on the long-term
survival of Homo sapiens.
The source of this closing circle is not the planet, which operates
according to natural laws, but rather the economic and social system in which
we live, which treats natural limits as mere barriers to surmount. It is now
doing so on a planetary scale, destroying in the process the earth as a place
of human habitation. Hence, the change that Klein is most concerned with, and
to which her book points, is not climate change itself, but the radical social
transformation that must be carried out in order to combat it. We as a species
will either radically change the material conditions of our existence or they
will be changed far more drastically for us. Klein argues in effect for System
Change Not Climate Change—the name adopted by the current ecosocialist movement
in the United States.2
In this way Klein, who in No Logo ushered in a new generational
critique of commodity culture, and who in The Shock Doctrine established
herself as perhaps the most prominent North American critic of neoliberal
disaster capitalism, signals that she has now, in William Morris’s famous
metaphor, crossed “the river of fire” to become a critic of capital as a
system.3 The reason is climate change, including the fact that we have waited
too long to address it, and the reality that nothing short of an ecological
revolution will now do the job.
In the age of climate change, Klein argues, a system based on
ever-expanding capital accumulation and exponential economic growth is no
longer compatible with human well-being and progress—or even with human
survival over the long run. We need therefore to reconstruct society along
lines that go against the endless amassing of wealth as the primary goal.
Society must be rebuilt on the basis of other principles, including the
“regeneration” of life itself and what she calls “ferocious love.”4 This
reversal in the existing social relations of production must begin immediately
with a war on the fossil-fuel industry and the economic growth imperative—when
such growth means more carbon emissions, more inequality, and more alienation
of our humanity.
Klein’s crossing of the river of fire has led to a host of liberal
attacks on This Changes Everything, often couched as criticisms emanating from
the left. These establishment criticisms of her work, we will demonstrate, are
disingenuous, having little to do with serious confrontation with her analysis.
Rather, their primary purpose is to rein in her ideas, bringing them into
conformity with received opinion. If that should prove impossible, the next
step is to exclude her ideas from the conversation. However, her message
represents the growing consciousness of the need for epochal change, and as
such is not easily suppressed.
http://monthlyreview.org/2015/02/01/crossing-the-river-of-fire/
The Global Climateric
The core argument of This Changes Everything is a historical one. If
climate change had been addressed seriously in the 1960s, when scientists first
raised the issue in a major way, or even in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when
James Hansen gave his famous testimony in Congress on global warming, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was first established, and the Kyoto
Protocol introduced, the problem could conceivably have been addressed without
a complete shakeup of the system. At that historical moment, Klein suggests, it
would still have been possible to cut emissions by at most 2 percent a year.5
Today such incremental solutions are no longer conceivable even in
theory. The numbers are clear. Over 586 billion metric tons of carbon have been
emitted into the atmosphere. To avoid a 2°C (3.6°F) increase in global average
temperature—the edge of the cliff for the climate—it is necessary to stay below
a trillion metric tons in cumulative carbon emissions. At the present rate of
carbon emissions it is estimated that we will arrive at the one trillionth
metric ton—equivalent to the 2°C mark—in less than a quarter century, around
2039.6 Once this point is reached, scientists fear that there is a high
probability that feedback mechanisms will come into play with reverberations so
great that we will no longer be able to control where the thermometer stops in
the end. If the world as it exists today is still to avoid the 2°C increase—and
the more dangerous 4°C, the point at which disruption to life on the planet
will be so great that civilization may no longer be possible—real revolutionary
ecological change, unleashing the full power of an organized and rebellious
humanity, is required.
What is necessary first and foremost is the cessation of fossil-fuel
combustion, bringing to a rapid end the energy regime that has dominated since
the Industrial Revolution. Simple arithmetic tells us that there is no way to
get down to the necessary zero emissions level, i.e., the complete cessation of
fossil-fuel combustion, in the next few decades without implementing some kind
of planned moratorium on economic growth, requiring shrinking capital formation
and reduced consumption in the richest countries of the world system. We have
no choice but to slam on the brakes and come to a dead stop with respect to
carbon emissions before we go over the climate cliff. Never before in human
history has civilization faced so daunting a challenge.
Klein draws here on the argument of Kevin Anderson, of the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change in Britain, who indicates that rich countries will
need to cut carbon emissions by 8–10 percent a year. “Our ongoing and
collective carbon profligacy,” Anderson writes, “has squandered any opportunity
for ‘evolutionary change’ afforded by our earlier (and larger) 2°C budget.
Today, after two decades of bluff and lies, the remaining 2°C budget demands
revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony.”7
Instead of addressing climate change when it first became critical in
the 1990s, the world turned to the intensification of neoliberal globalization,
notably through the creation of the World Trade Organization. It was the very
success of the neoliberal campaign to remove most constraints on the operations
of capitalism, and the negative effect that this had on all attempts to address
the climate problem, Klein contends, that has made “revolutionary levels of
transformation” of the system the only real hope in avoiding “climate chaos.”8
“As a result,” she explains,
we now find ourselves in a very difficult and slightly ironic position.
Because of those decades of hardcore emitting exactly when we were supposed to
be cutting back, the things that we must do to avoid catastrophic warming are
no longer just in conflict with the particular strain of deregulated capitalism
that triumphed in the 1980s. They are now in conflict with the fundamental
imperative at the heart of our economic model: grow or die….
Our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human
life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s
use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is
unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s
not the laws of nature….
Because of our lost decades, it is time to turn this around now. Is it
possible? Absolutely. Is it possible without challenging the fundamental logic
of deregulated capitalism? Not a chance.9
Of course, “the fundamental logic of deregulated capitalism” is simply
a roundabout way of pointing to the fundamental logic of capitalism itself, its
underlying drive toward capital accumulation, which is hardly constrained at
all in its accumulation function even in the case of a strong regulatory
environment. Instead, the state in a capitalist society generally seeks to free
up opportunities for capital accumulation on behalf of the system as a whole,
rationalizing market relations so as to achieve greater overall, long-run
expansion. As Paul Sweezy noted nearly three-quarters of a century ago in The
Theory of Capitalist Development, “Speaking historically, control over
capitalist accumulation has never for a moment been regarded as a concern of
the state; economic legislation has rather had the aim of blunting class
antagonisms, so that accumulation, the normal aim of capitalist behavior, could
go forward smoothly and uninterruptedly.”10
To be sure, Klein herself occasionally seems to lose sight of this
basic fact, defining capitalism at one point as “consumption for consumption’s
sake,” thus failing to perceive the Galbraith dependence effect, whereby the
conditions under which we consume are structurally determined by the conditions
under which we produce.11 Nevertheless, the recognition that capital
accumulation or the drive for economic growth is the defining property, not a
mere attribute, of the system underlies her entire argument. Recognition of
this systemic property led the great conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter
to declare: “Stationary capitalism would be a contradictio in adjecto.”12
It follows that no mere technological wizardry—of the kind
ideologically promoted, for example, by the Breakthrough Institute—will prevent
us from breaking the carbon budget within several decades, as long as the
driving force of the reigning socioeconomic system is its own self-expansion.
Mere improvements in carbon efficiency are too small as long as the scale of
production is increasing, which has the effect of expanding the absolute level
of carbon dioxide emitted. The inevitable conclusion is that we must rapidly
reorganize society on other principles than that of stoking the engine of
capital with fossil fuels.
None of this, Klein assures us, is cause for despair. Rather,
confronting this harsh reality head on allows us to define the strategic
context in which the struggle to prevent climate change must be fought. It is
not primarily a technological problem unless one is trying to square the
circle: seeking to reconcile expanding capital accumulation with the
preservation of the climate. In fact, all sorts of practical solutions to
climate change exist at present and are consistent with the enhancement of
individual well-being and growth of human community. We can begin immediately
to implement the necessary changes such as: democratic planning at all levels
of society; introduction of sustainable energy technology; heightened public
transportation; reductions in economic and ecological waste; a slowdown in the
treadmill of production; redistribution of wealth and power; and above all an
emphasis on sustainable human development.13
There are ample historical precedents. We could have a crash program,
as in wartime, where populations sacrificed for the common good. In England
during the Second World War, Klein observes, driving automobiles virtually
ceased. In the United States, the automobile industry was converted in the
space of half a year from producing cars to manufacturing trucks, tanks, and
planes for the war machine. The necessary rationing—since the price system
recognizes nothing but money—can be carried out in an egalitarian manner.
Indeed, the purpose of rationing is always to share the sacrifices that have to
be made when resources are constrained, and thus it can create a sense of real
community, of all being in this together, in responding to a genuine emergency.
Although Klein does not refer to it, one of the most inspiring historical
examples of this was the slogan “Everyone Eats the Same” introduced in the
initial phases of the Cuban Revolution and followed to an extraordinary extent
throughout the society. Further, wartime mobilization and rationing are not the
only historical examples on which we can draw. The New Deal in the United
States, she indicates, focused on public investment and direct promotion of the
public good, aimed at the enhancement of use values rather than exchange
values.14
Mainstream critics of This Changes Everything often willfully confuse
its emphasis on degrowth with the austerity policies associated with
neoliberalism. However, Klein’s perspective, as we have seen, could not be more
different, since it is about the rational use of resources under conditions of
absolute necessity and the promotion of equality and community. Nevertheless,
she could strengthen her case in this respect by drawing on monopoly-capital
theory and its critique of the prodigious waste in our economy, whereby only a
miniscule proportion of production and human labor is now devoted to actual
human needs as opposed to market-generated wants. As the author of No Logo,
Klein is well aware of the marketing madness that characterizes the
contemporary commodity economy, causing the United States alone to spend more
than a trillion dollars a year on the sales effort.15
What is required in a rich country such as the United States at
present, as detailed in This Changes Everything, is not an abandonment of all
the comforts of civilization but a reversion to the standard of living of the
1970s—two decades into what Galbraith dubbed “the affluent society.” A return
to a lower per capita output (in GDP terms) could be made feasible with
redistribution of income and wealth, social planning, decreases in working
time, and universal satisfaction of genuine human needs (a sustainable
environment; clean air and water; ample food, clothing, and shelter; and
high-quality health care, education, public transportation, and
community-cultural life) such that most people would experience a substantial
improvement in their daily lives.16 What Klein envisions here would truly be an
ecological-cultural revolution. All that is really required, since the
necessary technological means already exist, is people power: the democratic
mass mobilization of the population.
Such people power, Klein is convinced, is already emerging in the
context of the present planetary emergency. It can be seen in the massive but
diffuse social-environmental movement, stretching across the globe,
representing the struggles of tens of millions of activists worldwide, to which
she gives (or rather takes from the movement itself) the name Blockadia.
Numberless individuals are putting themselves on the line, confronting power,
and frequently facing arrest, in their opposition to the fossil-fuel industry
and capitalism itself. Indigenous peoples are organizing worldwide and taking a
leading role in the environmental revolt, as in the Idle No More movement in
Canada. Anti-systemic, ecologically motivated struggles are on the rise on
every continent.
The primary burden for mitigating climate change necessarily resides
with the rich countries, which are historically responsible for the great bulk
of the carbon added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution and still
emit the most carbon per capita today. The disproportionate responsibility of
these nations for climate change is even greater once the final consumption of
goods is factored into the accounting. Poor countries are heavily dependent on
producing export goods for multinational corporations to be sold to consumers
at the center of the world capitalist economy. Hence, the carbon emissions
associated with such exports are rightly assigned to the rich nations importing
these goods rather than the poor ones exporting them. Moreover, the rich
countries have ample resources available to address the problem and carry out
the necessary process of social regeneration without seriously compromising the
basic welfare of their populations. In these societies, the problem is no
longer one of increasing per capita wealth, but rather one of the rational,
sustainable, and just organization of society. Klein evokes the spirit of
Seattle in 1999 and Occupy Wall Street in 2011 to argue that sparks igniting
radical ecological change exist even in North America, where growing numbers of
people are prepared to join a global peoples’ alliance. Essential to the
overall struggle, she insists, is the explicit recognition of ecological or
climate debt owed by the global North to the global South.17
The left is not spared critical scrutiny in Klein’s work. She
acknowledges the existence of a powerful ecological critique within Marxism,
and quotes Marx on “capitalism’s ‘irreparable rift’ with ‘the natural laws of
life itself.‘” Nevertheless, she points to the high carbon emissions of
Soviet-type societies, and the heavy dependence of the economies of Bolivia and
Venezuela on natural resource extraction, notwithstanding the many social
justice initiatives they have introduced. She questions the support given by
Greece’s SYRIZA Party to offshore oil exploration in the Aegean. Many of those
on the left, and particularly the so-called liberal-left, with their Keynesian
predilections, continue to see an expansion of the treadmill of production,
even in the rich countries, as the sole means of social advance.18 Klein’s
criticisms here are important, but could have benefited, with respect to the
periphery, from a consideration of the structure of the imperialist world
economy, which is designed specifically to close off options to the poorer
countries and force them to meet the needs of the richer ones. This creates a
trap that even a Movement Toward Socialism with deep ecological and indigenous
values like that of present-day Bolivia cannot seek to overcome without deep
contradictions.19
“The unfinished business of liberation,” Klein counsels, requires “a
process of rebuilding and reinventing the very idea of the collective, the
communal, the commons, the civil, and the civic after so many decades of attack
and neglect.”20 To accomplish this, it is necessary to build the greatest mass
movement of humanity for revolutionary change that the world has ever seen: a
challenge that is captured in the title to her conclusion: “The Leap Years:
Just Enough Time for Impossible.” If this seems utopian, her answer would be
that the world is heading towards something worse than mere dystopia: unending,
cumulative, climate catastrophe, threatening civilization and countless species,
including our own.21
Liberal Critics as Gatekeepers
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